Upcoming Exhibitions
HOME / EXHIBITIONS / UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Catherine and Robert Palmer Gallery
Athenaeum Art Center | 1955 Julian Avenue, San Diego, CA 92113 | (619) 269-1981 | Tuesday–Saturday, 10 AM–4 PM; every second Saturday during the Barrio Art Crawl, 5–8 PM
Apertura
On view October 24, 2026–January 2, 2027
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 24, 5–8 PM
Athenaeum Art Center, 1955 Julian Avenue, San Diego, CA 92113
Organized by San Diego Poet Laureate Paola Capó-García and Artist Victor De La Fuente
APERTURA is a collection of 14 video works produced by a group of multi-generational San Diego/Tijuana-based artists. This exhibition is the culmination of a four-day workshop led in May of 2026 by San Diego Poet Laureate Paola Capó-García and artist Víctor De La Fuente. Eight participants came together as writers to reinterpret their lines through the lens as short films. To round out the exhibition, six other local artists were invited to contribute their own interpretations of poems via video. APERTURA, which means opening, calls for a more expansive way of experiencing poetry. We invite you to dwell in the intersection of poetics and film and to celebrate the different ways poetry can converge with visual art to tell the story of a city.
Participating Artists:
DG Cunanan, Zeinabu irene Davis & Marc Arthur Chery, Cassandra Dhillon, Elyse Farwell, Marinthia Gutiérrez Velazco, Susan Hill, Lev Kalman, Dharma-Julia Leon Valdez, Jason Magabo Perez, Savannah Meraz, Alison O’Daniel, Teem Osborn, Sarita Tánori, & Michael Trigilio
Joseph Clayes III Gallery
Athenaeum Music & Arts Library | 1008 Wall Street, La Jolla, CA 92037 | (858) 454-5872 | Tuesday–Friday: 11:00 AM–4:00 PM Saturday: 10:00 PM–5:30 PM Sunday, Monday & holidays: closed
Sylvia Fernández: Habitando, I Don't Belong Here, We Belong Everywhere
On view October 17, 2026–January 9, 2027
Opening Reception: Friday, October 16, 5:30 PM–7:30 PM
Artist Talk: Friday, October 16, 5:30 PM
Please join us for an artist talk with Sylvia Fernández at 5:30pm. An opening reception will take place after the artist talk.
In Habitando, I Don’t Belong Here, We Belong Everywhere, artist Sylvia Fernández (b. 1978, Lima, Peru) navigates the complexity of finding home everywhere and nowhere at once. Using Spanglish as a structural tool, and the flowing nature of water and air as frameworks for thinking about transformation, migration, and belonging, Fernández materializes the experience of moving between places as a journey toward the self, where memory and feeling continually shape a place to belong.
For this exhibition, Fernández expands beyond personal experience into collective awareness through two archives she has created: Archivo de Sentires (Archive of Feelings) and Archivo de Sombras (Archive of Shadows). The Archivo de Sentires draws on responses to seven questions posed to women of different ages living around the globe. These responses have been translated into paintings, with a palette drawn from every color named in the archive. The Archivo de Sombras comprises photographs of each woman’s sun-cast shadow, which act as source materials for the paintings. In the resulting works, the shadows appear as silhouettes, at times merging with Fernández’s own body to mark presence and absence.
Fernández’s adopted home of San Diego is linked by the Pacific Ocean to Lima, where she was born. San Diego’s dry terrain, waterways, shifting light, and native flora and fauna enter the paintings as fragments reimagined into new landscapes. Birds following the Pacific Flyway, from Alaska to Patagonia, appear as symbols, moving and belonging everywhere.
The exhibition design further reflects Fernández’s interest in fluidity of place and identity. Double-sided paintings hover and swirl in the gallery, inviting viewers to navigate works as they become portals for transformation and expansion.